DUSHANBE, January 07, /ITAR-TASS/. The ways of settling a border conflict between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are high on the agenda of a meeting of the two countries’ intergovernmental commission for cooperation that started its work in Dushanbe.

The Kyrgyz delegation is led by Deputy Prime Minister Tokon Mamytov and the Tajik delegation - by Deputy Prime Minister Murodali Alimardon, sources in the Tajik government told Itar-Tass.

“The conflict had been simmering for decades, since the Soviet era, as the issues of delimitation and demarcation of disputed areas remained unresolved,” an official said, adding that “disputes erupted as a result of joint use of roads, water resources for irrigation or other reasons.”

“Simply, living in one country known as the Soviet Union, all these conflicts were rapidly dampened down and received no wide publicity,” he said. “The lack of clearly shaped legal borders of disputed sections is a soaring wound that hurts at any, even insignificant occasion.”

The first round of talks took place in the middle of December on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. On Tuesday, members of the intergovernmental commission are set to discuss the whole range of border problems and develop common proposals for demarcation and delimitation of disputed areas.

“Our people have been living in peace and friendship for decades and existing problems should be resolved neighbourly, in a civilized and peaceful manner, at a negotiating table,” Murodali Alimardon said in his opening remarks to the meeting.